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When we reviewed Google and Asus’ Nexus 7 tablet last summer, we called it a “fantastic $200 tablet.” That assessment still holds true today, but in the year since it was introduced, the 7-to-8-inch tablet space has gotten much more crowded. New Kindle Fires, the iPad mini, and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8.0 are just a few of the high-profile devices that have risen to challenge the Nexus 7 in the last 12 months.

Google’s tablet is still a good value for the dollar, but we’re coming up on this year’s Google I/O conference, and the rumor mill suggests that the company will take the wraps off of a follow-up at its opening-day keynote. After a year of living with the first Nexus tablet, this is what we think should be introduced in its follow-up to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.

The same low price

One of the things that made the Nexus 7 (and Nexus hardware in general) so easy to recommend was its $200 starting price, and it’s still one of the most compelling reasons to give the Nexus 7 a try. The iPad mini has a better tablet app ecosystem, but it starts at a higher $329, and the Kindle Fires start at $159 (for the low-res version) and $199 (for the HD version) but have much more limited software.

We wouldn’t be averse to a small price bump on the Nexus 7, especially if it meant that some of our other wishes could come true, but if Google and its partner can stick to something in the $200 to $249 price range, it will become that much easier to forgive shortcomings.

A need for speed

Phones and tablets get faster every year, and the Nexus 7 is due for a bump.

Andrew Cunningham / Aurich Lawson

The most obvious improvement that we want from a new Nexus 7 is speed. Phone and tablet chips are still seeing sizable performance increases from year to year, and both the Cortex A9-based CPU and the custom GPU in Nvidia’s Tegra 3 are starting to feel a bit long in the tooth. It’s a serious step down from the faster chips that come in both the Nexus 4 and the Nexus 10, at any rate.

Current rumors suggest that the new tablet will use one of Qualcomm’s chips, and though we don’t know the specific SoC, Qualcomm has many suitably speedy parts in its portfolio. Whatever’s on the inside, it seems like a sure bet that the new Nexus 7 will leave the old one in the dust.

An improved screen

The current Nexus 7’s screen is actually still pretty good—at 1280×800 and 216 ppi, it’s sharper than the iPad mini (which has both a larger screen and a lower resolution) and the Note 8.0 (which has the same resolution in a larger screen). However, it still doesn’t approach the 300+ ppi of the full-sized iPads or the Nexus 10, to say nothing of the 400+ ppi in this most recent crop of 1080p Android phones.

Are a 1080p screen and $200 price point compatible? Given how common the resolution is becoming in the latest crop of high-end Android phones, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to hope the answer is yes. If Google could work with its partner to reduce the size of the tablet’s bezels to increase the size of the screen without increasing the tablet’s overall size, that would be even better.

Ars Associate Writer Casey Johnston would also like to see the shape of the screen change a bit. “I'd like a boxier aspect ratio, something closer to 4:3,” she said. “I just don't like 16:10 when the screen is so small.”

More noticeable notifications

There are a few simple features that are standard in the Nexus 4, Nexus 10, and many other phones and tablets that didn’t make it into the Nexus 7, possibly to reduce the price of the tablet—a notification light and a vibration motor. Both of these features give your phone or tablet a way to get your attention that doesn’t require you to actually grab the device and check the notification center (the vibrator motor also enables haptic feedback that vibrates the tablet slightly as you type, a feature I personally enjoy on other devices).

Neither accessory is essential to the operation of the tablet (and it may be that you turn off your notification lights and vibrations anyway), but in a follow-up, we’d like for Google and its lucky partner to work this stuff in, if only to bring some more consistency to the Nexus lineup.

A rear-facing camera

The current Nexus 7 only has a (low-quality) front-facing camera, and it includes no rear-facing camera at all. I’m often the first person to decry those who use their tablets to take photos, but that doesn’t mean that one wouldn’t occasionally be convenient.

“I know it feels more than a little conspicuous to be waving a tablet around to take pictures of something,” said Johnston, “but sometimes your cat is doing something cute in your lap and you can't reach your phone.”

Speakers you’d actually want to hear

It’s just about physically impossible to integrate good speakers into anything as small as a phone or tablet, but even so, it wouldn’t be hard to one-up the Nexus 7’s single, quiet, rear-facing speaker. The iPad mini includes a pair of speakers, and while the quality isn’t great, I can say from personal experience that it’s perfectly suitable for filling a small room with some background music. We like to hold the Nexus 7. We like to look at the Nexus 7. If we could like listening to it, so much the better.

Mobile broadband and more storage at launch

When Google launched the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 in November, the company also spruced up the Nexus 7: the $199 8GB model was tossed out in favor of a $199 16GB model, a higher-capacity 32GB model was added for $249, and $299 would get you a 32GB model with 3G connectivity.

That was all well and good, but these are all options we’d like to see introduced at launch, when the early adopters (the most vocal advocates for any ecosystem) can benefit from them. The 8GB of flash in the original entry-level Nexus 7 also had another adverse effect beyond its small size—the small amount of NAND also had a major impact on the tablet’s performance, as we outlined in our report about the updated Nexus 7.

That’s what we’d like to see in the next Nexus, but is there anything we missed? Let us know what you think, and if we can get enough input we’ll publish a follow-up article with your opinions next week before Google I/O gets going.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

I'm a nexus 7 and S3 owner and I find the '7' a bit pointless if you have an andriod smartphone. Too small to be a productive tool and too big be a general handy computing device (S3 excels in this area). I end up using it a DNLA client when I need to watch something in bed.

I don't think this is a great idea. Bezels on a tablet help when holding it in one hand and the thumb rests on the front of the tablet. I'm not saying there isn't any wiggle room here, but it serves a purpose besides framing the content.

Like another reader, HDMI out would be a solid feature, plus expandable storage.

It would be great if they would upgrade the wi-fi chipset to be Wireless-N compatible.

It is 802.11n compatible. It just doesn't have the 5Ghz antenna and 5GHz band, which is optional in 208.11n. The Nexus 10 does have 5GHz and 40MHz wide channels in 5GHz band, giving not only faster maximum wireless speed but also far less contention in most environments, where 2.4GHz is already crowded with 802.11b/g traffic and a lot of other ISM band users.

Yes, I'd really like the 5GHz capability also. The micro-USB connector on my Nexus 7 is somewhat loose after some unintentional abuse -- it might not hurt to overengineer the micro-USB connector. Other than I have no complaints.

I'm a nexus 7 and S3 owner and I find the '7' a bit pointless if you have an andriod smartphone. Too small to be a productive tool and too big be a general handy computing device (S3 excels in this area). I end up using it a DNLA client when I need to watch something in bed.

I think if I was buying now I'd buy a nexus 10.

I bought a Nexus 7 to use as an Android and Ubuntu testbed, but I use it far, far more than I anticipated. I also have a Galaxy Nexus, and I don't use it a fraction of the time I do the Nexus 7. The Nexus 10 looks like a great piece of kit but the reduced portability leads me to believe it won't work as well for my uses.

Having fully switched from an iPad to a Nexus 7, I'd like to see the following:

- Don't make it any bigger! It fits in my jeans pockets right now, it fits in my wife's purse right now, and it's the perfect size. I'd like to see something closer to a 4:3 ratio, but if it's at the cost of making it any wider, I'll take what it is now. The iPad Mini fits none of the places the N7 fits.- A DPI bump on the screen is certainly going to be a nice feature. It's a good screen now, but it's not an excellent screen.- Faster CPU, more RAM. The difference between 1GB RAM on the Nexus 7 and 2GB on the Nexus 4 is noticeable with regards to how often Chrome reloads pages & such.- Better GPS. The Nexus 7 GPS is very good, but the Nexus 4 blows it away. I play Ingress. This matters to me. - Slightly bigger battery. Go 1-2mm thicker and add moar battery.

Really, I'd be happy with a resolution bump, CPU/RAM bump to meet/exceed the Nexus 4, and the same form factor it currently has.

The camera is probably a no-win scenario. Any rear-facing camera they include within the constraints of a $200 price point will probably not be that great, and they they will just get hammered for having a crappy camera. Improving the front-facing camera would probably be a better use of the hardware dollars.

According to Duarte, including microSD slots makes things “confusing for users.” He brought up a litany of questions that come along with using microSD cards on mobile devices – “If you’re saving photos, videos or music, where does it go? Is it on your phone? Or on your card? Should there be a setting? Prompt everytime?” – and concluded that they just make things too complicated.

Keep the Bezel. I like to have my thumb rest on it when holding it. Doubt this will stay since they will wan t to make it smaller and lighter.

HDMI out. And/or MHL supported (usb to HDMI).

Rear facing camera for use as a scanner. This makes samsung tablets compelling in business environments needing a scanning device. I agree using the tablet camera for actual photos and rather silly. People at conventions and concerts holding tablets in the air to take photos make me cringe.

Thats all I can think of I would like in my 32Gb Nexus 7. Compliments my Galaxy Nexus well, easy to carry around and great price. Price is the biggest selling point for what you get.

First-party accessories available on launch day. It was ridiculous that the dock (a seriously complicated piece of technology, we all agree) took six months to reach market. Nexus 10 is still way behind in this, so I don't have a lot of hope for the 2013 line of Google products, but if Apple can do it...

One of the things that made the Nexus 7 (and Nexus hardware in general) so easy to recommend was its $200 starting price, and it’s still one of the most compelling reasons to give the Nexus 7 a try. The iPad mini has a better tablet app ecosystem, but it starts at a higher $329, and the Kindle Fires start at $159 (for the low-res version) and $199 (for the HD version) but have much more limited software.

Since the unlocking of Google Play on the Nooks, I think they're worth mentioning as competitors in this arena. The Nook HD has a higher res screen and expandable storage, and currently starts at $149.

Agree with previous comments saying expandable storage would be nice (but will never happen). I foresee higher resolution screen along with maybe a slightly improved processor.

Sharper screen: Yes, the current res is acceptable, but it would be nice to see it get up to 300dpi to remove the lingering fuzziness.Smaller bezels: Emphatically no. The current ones give just enough space for your thumb so it can be held comfortably in one hand.Squarer aspect ratio: 16/10 is closer to the AR's used for small print publications anyway, and 4:3 would make it too wide to fit in a coat pocket (like the iPad mini). So no.More Ram: Definitely. The CPU on my Nexus 7 only ramps up to full speed about an eighth of the time it's on, so raw speed isn't really a priority. What I would like to see though is:Faster NAND controller: This is the real Achilles' Heel of the current device and I'm pretty sure the cause of the lingering lag that pops up from time to time.HDMI out/MHL/Miracast: Don't have a use for them myself, but leaving them out is just penny-pinching.

You can't get everything on a budget tablet so you have to prioritize what you want. I really like the build quality and the form factor of the current 7. It also has most of what I want when it comes to features.

Front-facing stereo speakersCamera on the rear (mainly for "scanning" documents)Kickstand (the MS Surface got it totally right)Better buttons (the current ones are too small, too similar and invisible from the front -- I'm constantly pressing the sleep button instead of volume or the other way round)A less tacky design (the silver plastic on the bezel looks so cheap)

[Edit: What's wrong with this? The "tacky design"? I don't get the downvotes. Anyway, all of this is true, a middle-of the-road tablet that gets all of this right would be a hit, no doubt. Add a rear camera that is in the right spot (in the center) and some good LED lights and a macro mode so you can snap up chips and pimples and strange insects and you'd be able to sell tens of millions. Nobody cares for a core more or less or 720p or 1080p more than for that.]

the volume on the Nexus 7 is absolutely pathetic! even using a booster program it's still crap! get that sorted out and put a rear facing camera and i could live without the other bits (although if they were included i wouldn't complain). Google should also try to do something for those of us that have the 'old' Nexus7 as far as volume is concerned. i am sure the speaker is capable of giving more without distortion so perhaps a software update would help?

To me a tablet is for web surfing, video/music playing, book reading, and game playing. None of these require a camera.

The only real use I could think of for a camera would be to work with those apps that will let you scan in and OCR documents.

Just being able to photograph letters, labels, flyers, whiteboards and other mundane things would be very useful. Having a nice tablet with a high-res screen that can replace paper for many things and then not being able to "digitize" visual data you have in front of you just totally sucks.

It feels outright absurd that you already have to have things available in digital form in the first place to use them with your tablet. A camera in a tablet is more about bridging the analog/digital gap than about photography.